Help with dealing with behaviour :(

[pumpkinsweetie]

My dd 5, is currently going through statement for asd since end july this year.
I went to the school as i realised after all these years that there is indeed issues with my dd and upon research i realised that all her behaviours relate to autism.

Anyhow her behaviour towards me is getting very fraught and it has got to the point i have broke down in tears. When routine changes such as n

Sorry posted too soon,

such as dh new hours at work, equals less time with children, then the changes at school such as compulsory wearing of pe kit all day twice a week etc

So i get punched, and kicked on a daily basis.
Yesterday there was an incidence of her hitting me with a tree branch outside school as i told her we would be waiting for daddy instead of going straight to the other school to pick up older dd. I had to wait for him as needed my younger dd buggy as she was playing up.
I'm 7 months pregnant and she just kept hitting me over and over with thr branch and kicking me. I tried to get her to calm down but was trying to hold my other dd hand also aswell aswell as nursery and school bags. Then she ran off down the street leaving me to chase her for 50 metres with toddler and bags in tow.

Things like this are occuring more and more, what do i do

Have you talked to your hv and the nursery? Both where rubbish for me but if dd is being violent and you are pg and she runs off ( I could run at 7 months pg!) I think they should sit up and listen.

Do you mean you needed to put your 5 year old DD in the buggy? If so thats a good strategy and you can get a free Maclaren Major buggy if your GP or HV refers to the NHS OT dept. Can you put her in the buggy and the younger one on a buggy board?? Or you may be able to get a double buggy via OT suitable for 5 year old. It sounds as though you may need to keep 3 of them safe so need to sort out a solution.

DS is always desperate to leave school straight away and it is difficult if we have to wait around for his brother etc. If possible warn her in advance if things are going to be different. You can write a list and tick off whats happening so she knows what is coming next. You can do a weekly calendar for what to wear on different days etc. I know it sounds odd but sometimes if its a piece of paper rather than a person saying what is going to happen it avoids the tantrum.

Get in touch with social services disabled childrens team and ask for an assessment for you as a carer as well as her (contact a family have leaflet explaining process). You may be entitled to direct payments so you can buy in some help - which you will need when the baby arrives.

Can you drive to school and get a member of staff to bring her to the carpark?

You can also apply for DLA care and mobility and again could possibly use that to get some help / you can also apply for a blue badge so you can park near to school etc.

Are you getting any advice eg from autism outreach team?

Are there any parents at school you can tell whats going on who could help eg at least look after your younger one if you need to deal with her?

You need to think of her as developmentally like a 2-3 year old and plan accordingly eg with buggies, drive instead of walk, an extra pair of hands etc.

She is 5 so hv don't want to know as she is over the age hv deal with and she is in school. The school only care about her behaviour in school which is good. I spoke to a lady on the school run this morning and she said her son sees a peadatrictian, i'm not even sure how to get a peadatrician?

This morning has been bad, i had her have a full meltdown in the kitchen all over her wanting to open her packed lunch before school, tried getting down to her level and calmly telling her she must wait until lunch but she just kicked me, with her trainers on too, so i removed them and waited for her to calm down. On the way to school she ran of again, so i was had to chase her again. We were right by school but she is so unpredictable she could run past the school or even into the road when in that mood so i have no choice but to chase her.
There is also the added danger of parents pulling their cars up on the pavement without a care in the world, which doesn't help!

My doctors are equally rubbish , i cannot even get an appointment with our own doctor so i'm in the process of changing surgeries to see whether seeing if a new doctor can help refer me to any help available, as at the moment i get none at all.

My dd has speech & language problems too, so she is always frustrated. She also failed her hearing test twice in school, yet we are forced to sit on a waiting list until she finally gets diagnosed.

Could you ask school to let you pick your dd early (or late) to avoid the crowds?

Ask for a meeting with school to try and work out some stratagies to calm things - e.g. they could give your daughter a visual timetable so she knows what is going to happen. Is she behaving like this in school.? There are lots of things school can do to reduce the sensory overload and anxiety.

Ask for their help to try and work out the triggers - for my son it was sudden changes, change in teachers, PE, music, RE. It helps to think of the behaviours as a panic attack - so try and deal with calmly rather than by getting cross as this often escalates the situation (easier said than done I know).

No Agnes i was waiting with my 3yo and my 5yo for my dh to bring the buggy for my 3yo as she was warn out after nursery. But my 5yo did not want to wait as it wasn't within her normal daily routine.

I don't drive, it's to unaffordable for me at the moment but ideally it would help me a great deal in getting her to school in an ordilly fashion.

She is still undiagnosed at present so i don't think anyone will listen to me iyswim.

The school she goes to is an academy and tbh they have very strict guidlines on school times and are very thorough about children coming and going at exactly the same time everyday but i will ask just incase taking and picking her up is allowed. They do a breakfast club so that may solve the morning crowds but i cant see them allowing me to take her early in the afternoon, the afternoon being the main issue for me at the moment.

I get no help, have been offered no help and the teacher seems nice but insupportive. For example re: pe kit must be worn all day tue and thurs and i had issues getting her into the classroom on those days so i told te teacher i would no longer be following those rules. At first she agreed but on parents evening she told me i could try putting her pe kit on under her dress as a stratergy and at first dd was fine with it but again she seems most worst on pe days but just for me on the way to school so teacher is blind the the issues i face at home because of the pe kit.

*haven't been offered no help

I will try the calendar idea Agnes that may help because if she knows whats coming she may face the day calmer.

Other people seem to get so much more help than me, i just don't have the face. It's me that went for statementing, although her previous teacher did note she needs a lot more help than she gets.
The senco has said she is still gathering evidence for statementing , considering july was many months ago i am getting annoyed at the drawn out process already and thought by now the evidence they already had would be enough.

I normally deal very well with her meltdowns but due to being physically attacked on a daily basis all week i find myself shouting at her and feel so guilty as i know it doesn't help. I also feel embarrassed that her behaviour is so bad right infront of so many school parents. And they all stare at us making it worse and as i feel more embarrassed with their eyes on me i end up swearing and shouting

I have a couple of questions.
You said she is undiagnosed ASD. Are you in the process of being diagnosed? I found that you have to be referred via a GP as the school can't do that.

I have heard that some people use visual timetables in the morning with pictures on a board to be moved/ticked off as they are done. As your DD is only 5 - pictures would be good as I presume she can't read much yet?
I never tried it myself but it sounds like it might help.

I don't know if it would be too advanced but there is a website called [http://www.angriesout.com/get your angries out"] that might give you some strategies to help calm her. it was good for DS but he was a couple of years older at the time.

GP can refer to paediatrician. Go armed with a list of a typical day problems and insist on being referred.
I would seriously think about a double buggy either via NHS or on eBay etc.
Some places have drop in sessions for speech therapy. Look on hospital website or at children's centres.
A children's centre may have a parent support worker who can help you access support.
Have you applied for statement and been refused or not yet applied? You can do this yourself without waiting for school as it's not uncommon children to be worse at home.
At home can you make a soft space or corner which is safe and you can put her if she kicks off? Then ignore her until calms down? Ds can't process speech well but when he's cross his ability to process is worse so its pointless talking to him until he calms down.then keep your language minimal. On PE days take her in uniform and let school change her when she arrives let them deal with it.
Few of us got support without a fight. You just have to keep asking until they get fed up with you and appeal any decision that's goes against you. Some disabled children charities will fund driving lessons eg family fund used to am not sure if they still do. Or use DLA etc. probably not an option until baby is here. 2 or 3 kids under 6 is hard anyway without SN issues and you must be tired. Do you have any family support? I have learnt to ask for help and accept any offers.

Go and see your GP! They need to refer to either CAMHS or a Paediatrician to get your DD diagnosed as ASD. She cannot get a statement for ASD without a diagnosis, and the school cannot get her a diagnosis (and they are not qualified to diagnose). The school might be able to get a statement for Emotional and Behavioural difficulties, but this would be hard; it is hard enough getting a statement for ASD.

You really will need to accept your DDs rigidness to some extent, and try to plan around it. My DD walked herself to school from 9 because she could not cope with being even a couple of minutes later than the gates opened.

You might want to look up social stories and try to use that approach to explain to her why she can't hit you.

The Explosive Child might give you some strategies for coping with her behaviour.

Llisten & Agnes i'm currently applying for statement through the school, but have been told this could take from 9 months to a year or more. Would i be better of going down the Gp route in regards to statementing?

Her reading skills are very poor, as is her speech which adds to her frustration so pictures on a calendar would be good, went in search for a calendar this afternoon but they are all for 2014 so i'm going to craft my own one tonight.

As for a twin pram, i do have a phil and teds for when baby arrives so that my 3yo and baby can leave me hands free to deal with my 5yo. I also have a buggy board which i did orignally incorparate on the school run so that 5yo could have a rest, but in the end it caused more problems than it was worth as i was left tripping over it whilst in pursute of 5yo
I think a solution for now would be to always have 3yo in pushchair on the afternoon run especially as then i can chase 5yo more easily as 3yo tends to be slow (can't blame her after 1/2 day at nursery)

Family help: there isn't a lot tbh and at first i was coping very well but since children have known of my pregnancy the jealousy has set in and behaviour towards me has become worse due to that aswell.
My dm does help when she can, ie coming round before she goes off for her night shift, settling her down if she is mid meltdown and she does have a way with her but as for people taking her off my hands for an hour , that rarely happens although my dm did have her for an hour fri so that was nice.

Dh has odd shifts and children haven't been seeing him as he does 4 days of 7am - 7pm but because of travel he doesn't see dd5yo or 3yo on that shift and then he does 4 days of 7pm-7am and he then only sees them 10 mins before they go to school and then for 2 1/2 hours after school.

He is going back to his old job soon so that should help, as he will be doing 10pm-6am so he will be anle to help me more with bedtime etc.

I agree re the pe kit and have decided after half term that i'm not sending her in it anymore. I'm sure the head will come down on me like a ton of bricks but oh well he can swing.

Thankyou for all you help, will definetly make a cosy corner for her for when she loses her temper because at present her favourite melt down area is my concrete slab kitchen floor which isn't ideal or safe.
Was think of buying one of those bubble/lava tall lamps and scatter cushions aswell as a soft mat and a bean bag where she can chill out for 10 mins or so.

I'm going to ask to see the senco after half term and see about picking her up early and breakfast club.

And as soon as i get accepted at the new gp surgery the first thing i will do is make an appointment in regards to dd to see a peadatrician.

I don't know much about statementing and tbh i get confused with all the jargon surrounding and was completely unaware that the school couldn't get diagnosis for asd.
I have been spun a crock or crap by the senco it seems.....

Thankyou zzzz you have made me understand alot more now. Will get on to the docs as soon as they accept me at surgery.

The help she gets with hearing is zilch as she is still on the waiting list for audiology. She does recieve speech therapy & has done since nursery but no outside help with either as Hv were completely useless when i went to them before her 5th birthday.

The walk home was better today, although she did come out of school crying her eyes out quite obviously and the teacher didn't even notice
I spoke to teacher but she wasn't impressed i had approached her at that point in time (although she only had 2 pupils more to send out) and did a catsbum face at me before i fired away asking how she is in school. She said she is enjoying school although she cried for 10 mins after leaving saying she wanted mummy and doesn't want to go back tomorrow...

We then had a meltdown over not having any cheese left in the house, which lasted for 10 mins whilst she thrashed about on living room carpet.

For education support look up the SEN Toolkit or SEN Code of Practice.

I agree i would put your 5 year old in the buggy. You can manage the baby or 3 year old in a sling or buggy board / reins etc

DS liked a blanket over the buggy to shut the world out when he came out of school.

Contact a Family has lots of straightforward leaflets about all the different entitlements which explain everything.

Ask school to set up a home / school book which they write in every day to let you know of any issues. Or ask them to let you have an email address so you can let them know if things from school are causing problems at home.

Do you have homestart where you are? Charity where volunteers come and help you at home?

Thankyou guys, you have been a real help today